It's a big weekend for composer John Williams. Not only is he conducting his annual concert at the Hollywood Bowl -- "John Williams: Maestro of the Movies," Friday and Saturday evenings with special guest narrator Julie Andrews -- the Hollywood Museum is also opening a new exhibit featuring costumes, props, posters and photos from the blockbusters and classics for which he's composed, including "Jurassic Park," "Superman" and "Harry Potter and...

WASHINGTON -- Top Federal Reserve officials said financial markets overreacted to Chairwoman Janet Yellen's comments last week indicating the central bank could start raising interest rates early next year. In speeches and interviews, the officials stressed that Fed policy on its near zero short-term interest rates hadn't changed and that rates would remain low for a long period of time. "I don't think the Fed changed its position," Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told CNBC-TV Tuesday.

If you listened carefully in the hills and canyons around the Hollywood Bowl on Friday evening, you could almost hear a simple ostinato built around two bass notes that evoked the ominous feeling of an imminent attack by a predatory shark. Da-dum. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. Run for your lives, here it comes! Something deep, dark and ageless -- at least in pop culture terms -- indeed swept into the Bowl on a very warm summer night. But it wasn't the Oscar-winning theme from "Jaws" by film composer John Williams, who conducted his annual concert "John Williams: Maestro of the Movies" (the show also plays Saturday night)

Roll over, Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news: veering sharply from traditional classical concert decorum, Leonard Slatkin told concert-goers in West Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday night that he and the Detroit Symphony were ready for their close-up (or long shot, as the case might be), and invited them to whip out phones, snap pictures of the scene, and post them on social media to instantly commemorate the moment. Having just climaxed the scheduled program at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts with Ravel's “Bolero,” Slatkin didn't just take the usual mute bow. According to a news release sent out Wednesday by the Detroit Symphony, which he's led as music director since 2008, he addressed the audience, saying: "You've heard that we're the most accessible orchestra on the planet, and tonight you're going to be the most accessible audience on the planet.

The day in 1986 came, and John Williams decided to leave Louisiana State University. It wasn't pleasant for him. It has often seemed basketball hasn't been much fun for Williams since. The Washington Bullets have been locked in a 10-month battle with their star over his weight, his work habits and, most recently, his money.

John Williams remains one of the most reliable classical guitar virtuosos on the scene, a stalwart for nearly four decades now. One can reasonably expect pristine, focused performances whenever he shows up, an expectation fulfilled at his appearance in the Philharmonic's Celebrity Recital series Wednesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He makes playing a difficult instrument sound effortless and makes serious music flow smoothly.

The guitar world has changed enormously since John Williams made his debut in 1958, but his preeminent place in it is more secure than ever. He still sets a technical standard few can match, and has become an increasingly expressive artist. His program Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium, however, was something of a throwback. A motley collection of miniatures, it offered many shining moments but little cumulative impact.

John Williams, a Los Angeles Rams lineman in the 1970s who went to dental school during his off-seasons and started a dentistry practice in Minneapolis after he retired from football, has died. He was 66. Williams, who had recently undergone a kidney transplant, died Sunday while taking a walk near his home, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The Hennepin County medical examiner's office confirmed his death. Born in Jackson, Miss., on Oct. 27, 1945, John McKay Williams was a high school football star in Toledo, Ohio.

Washington Bullet General Manager John Nash knows inquiring Bullets fans want to know: --Why the team didn't unload John Williams at the end of last season when he was in something resembling NBA shape? "John's stats weren't good at the end of last year and I'm afraid to have tried to trade him would have been like holding a fire sale," Nash said.

Propaganda today has a nasty connotation; it suggests something cheesy, manipulative, in the service of a dishonorable cause. During World War II, however, cinematic propaganda became an elevated art, practiced with unusual expertise by five great American movie directors: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens. Hitler threw down the gauntlet with Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" (1935), propaganda so captivating that it impelled even gentle Germans to thump their chests.

WASHINGTON - Brutal winter weather contributed to a downturn in job growth and other economic data, raising questions about the strength of the recovery and testing the Federal Reserve's resolve in unwinding its key bond-buying stimulus program. Fed policymakers will have another month of data to consider when they next meet in mid-March. But if the views of John C. Williams are any indication, the Fed is likely to hold course. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, one of the Fed's 12 district banks, Williams has a seat at the mahogany table where top Fed officials meet regularly to discuss the economy and make policy decisions.

When a movie has little dialogue and even fewer sound effects, what keeps the audience tethered emotionally to the story? And how can a film seamlessly blend the idea of death and a child's wide-eyed wonderment? Through its music, of course. Here are four composers whose work covers all of the above as well as a solemn spirituality and a playful pizazz. JOHN WILLIAMS, 'The Book Thief' After nearly a decade of composing exclusively for Steven Spielberg's often-epic films, five-time Oscar winner John Williams took on the gentle Holocaust-era drama "The Book Thief.

If you listened carefully in the hills and canyons around the Hollywood Bowl on Friday evening, you could almost hear a simple ostinato built around two bass notes that evoked the ominous feeling of an imminent attack by a predatory shark. Da-dum. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. Run for your lives, here it comes! Something deep, dark and ageless -- at least in pop culture terms -- indeed swept into the Bowl on a very warm summer night. But it wasn't the Oscar-winning theme from "Jaws" by film composer John Williams, who conducted his annual concert "John Williams: Maestro of the Movies" (the show also plays Saturday night)

It's a big weekend for composer John Williams. Not only is he conducting his annual concert at the Hollywood Bowl -- "John Williams: Maestro of the Movies," Friday and Saturday evenings with special guest narrator Julie Andrews -- the Hollywood Museum is also opening a new exhibit featuring costumes, props, posters and photos from the blockbusters and classics for which he's composed, including "Jurassic Park," "Superman" and "Harry Potter and...

Gustavo Dudamel keeps a busy professional schedule filled to the breaking point with conducting engagements in Los Angeles and Caracas, Venezuela, plus other major cities. Still, he's managed to find time in recent months to compose and conduct the score for an upcoming biopic of Simón Bolivar. In a recent interview with The Times, Dudamel said he has completed scoring and recording the soundtrack to the movie "Libertador," which stars Edgar Ramirez as the South American revolutionary figure.